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Brand Finance Asia Pacific Managing
Director, Samir Dixit says that “A strong nation brand contributes to the success of the
local brands from the country in more ways than one. A strong country brand
also helps drive global preference across various projects and initiatives that
the country gets involved in”. He added that “A strong nation brand is a symbol
of overall success and growth of the nation and must be driven strategically
with a structured approach”.

He further adds that “Brand Finance estimates that strong nation
branding can add between 1% and 5% to GNP. In the current economic environment
no sensible government can afford to ignore branding as an instrument of
economic policy.”

Singapore remains ASEAN’s most valuable brand. 38% nation brand value
growth this year brings its total to $404 billion. Undoubtedly one of the
world’s strongest brands, Singapore’s historic strength in education means it
performs particularly well in the People & Skills input of Brand Finance’s
Brand Strength Index. A welcoming tax regime, excellent infrastructure and
stable society mean it also continues to top the rankings for ‘Investment’.

Malaysia is this year’s fastest mover; its brand value is up 48% on
2012. Reasons for its rapid climb up the nation brand rankings include its
growing status as a hub for Islamic banking and growing demand for commodities
such as palm oil, driven by an increasing and increasingly wealthy world
population. Malaysia’s ambitious ‘Wawasan’ or ‘Vision’ 2020 goal, to reach
developed nation status by 2020, had looked to have been faltering, however in
the last year Prime Minister Najib Razak said progress towards the target is
firmly back on track, with GDP per capita set to reach the milestone US$15000
by 2018, 2 years ahead of target.

Thailand has achieved the highest score in the tourism input of Brand
Finance’s Brand Strength Index. Hospitable people, winter sun, unspoilt beaches
and heritage combined are its many enticing offerings. It is the 3rd
fastest mover with 43% growth. The kingdom’s total brand value is up $107
billion to $359 billion.

Vietnam’s total
brand value now stands at $133 billion and it has jumped 2 places overall to
44th. The high inflation of recent times has been brought under control and
exports of textiles and electronics are booming. Emulating China, state
capitalism has had a transformative effect on Vietnam and it continues to
establish an increasingly wealthy middle class. GDP per capita is up 14% this
year and internet
penetration has increased from 27.6% to 35.1% in 2013. Brand strength has
improved across the board but in particular in the tourism sector. A trip SE
Asia used to almost invariably mean Thailand. Now several, equally attractive
countries such as Vietnam are benefitting both from Westerners looking to less
crowded, underexplored regions and the growth of the Chinese middle class.

Indonesia is in the top 10 most improved for
both the ‘Investment’ and ‘Goods & Services’ inputs of Brand Finance’s
Brand Strength Index. It is up one place overall following 31% brand value
growth to $339 billion. 14% GDP growth points to healthy growth for Indonesia
though the picture has been slightly more mixed in recent months, with domestic
consumption down and the rupiah sliding against the dollar.

The Philippines’ nation brand value is up 37% to a
total of $52 billion. Strongly improving metrics from the IMD World
Competitiveness Report on image abroad and from the World Economic Forum on the
corporate governance and perceptions of corruption are partly responsible. The
country has made great progress in attracting investors and so has achieved the
biggest rise in the ‘Investment’ input of the Brand Finance Brand Strength Index
of any country. Improving educational standards and the young, rapidly growing
population of the Catholic country has seen an improvement in the ‘People &
Skills’ category too.

Burma is finally opening up to the world after decades of isolation. Tentative
political and economic reforms have meant the easing of sanctions and now
global investors are piling in. Telecoms and technology companies in particular
regard the country as the last great unexploited market, with mobile
penetration of only 7%. Though not yet large enough to break into the top 100,
we expect Burma to soar up the rankings over the next few years as so many
other ASEAN Nation Brands have.

Amongst the rest of the world, The US is the world’s most valuable nation brand. It has
surged further ahead of rival nations, with brand value up 23% to $17.99
trillion. China is the world’s 2nd most valuable nation brand,
followed by Germany, the UK, Japan & France in that order, but Brand USA is
more valuable than all of these nations’ brands combined. Other success stories
include Ireland (brand value growth
of 35%), Turkey (41%), Sri Lanka (46%), Kazakhstan (37%), Australia
(32%) and New Zealand (36%).

Countries which have not fared so
well include Japan, which has
suffered an 11% drop in nation brand value as the country continues to recover
from the fallout of the tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Cyprus is this year’s fastest faller.
Its well publicised and disastrous financial crisis is unsurprisingly the main
factor. Egypt’s nation brand value
has also dropped 38% as a result of the instability following the country’s
revolution.

Samir Dixit further highlights that “We have often seen too many
individual departments like the tourism department, economic development
boards’, Ministry of Trade and Development etc driving their own agenda for the
economic contribution towards the nation’s growth with no measure of how much
they are actually contributing to the value and strength of the Nation brand.
This needs to fundamentally change and there has to be a KPI measure of how
much each government body is contributing to the overall value growth of the
Nations brand and at what cost.”

David Haigh, CEO of Brand Finance commented “A strong brand has become a defining feature of success in the current
economic climate. Worldwide hyper competition for business, combined with an
increasingly cluttered media environment, means that the clear message carried
by a properly managed brand can provide the crucial leverage needed to thrive.
Nations can adopt similar techniques to capitalise on the economic growth that
comes with proper positioning of a nation brand.”